FRONTIERS OF ZOOLOGYDale A. Drinnon has been a researcher in the field of Cryptozoology for the past 30+ years and has corresponded with Bernard Heuvelmans and Ivan T. Sanderson. He has a degree in Anthropology from Indiana University and is a freelance artist and writer. Motto: "I would rather be right and entirely alone than wrong in the company with all the rest of the world"--Ambroise Pare', "the father of modern surgery", in his refutation of fake unicorn horns.

Rangers sight pygmies in Way Kambas National Park

Rangers patrolling the Way Kambas National Park (TNWK) in Lampung claim to have sighted dozens of pygmies in a number of areas across the park.

According to them, the pygmies sport dreadlocks, measure no more than 50 centimeters tall and do not wear any clothing.

“A number of rangers claim the pygmies grow their dreadlocks down to their waist. The first sighting by the rangers was on March 17 at 6:40 p.m. local time,” said TNWK spokesman Sukatmoko.

He added that several rangers patrolling the park claimed the pygmies were seen moving to the PT Nusantara Tropical Fruit (NTF) plantation. They were seen running from the TNWK forest to the plantation.

“Apparently, many fruit trees, such as banana, guava and dragon fruit, are grown in the NTF plantation area. If the pygmies like fruit, they might have entered the plantation for food,” said Sukatmoko.

Forest rangers have secured a number of points at the border between TNWK and PT NTF, concerned that the safety of the pygmies is at stake due to the presence of many workers at the plantation.

“We will try to anticipate the situation with the help of local residents and PT NTF employees. If they come across the pygmies, they should not harm them,” he said.

Sukatmoko said that based on information conveyed by forest rangers, the group of pygmies consisted of around 15 individuals. When the rangers spotted them, the pygmies, believed to be an isolated group of people, were walking through a swamp.

“The rangers monitored their presence for around 15 minutes from a distance of around 35 meters. When the rangers were about to approach them, they immediately hid behind trees and vanished. They ran very fast,” said Sukatmoko.

He added that on March 20, patrolling rangers sighted the pygmies again in the same place, but this time they observed from further away and for a shorter time.

Sukatmoko said his office was unsure whether the pygmies had always lived in TNWK, or whether they were newcomers from other islands. To record their presence, the TNWK center has installed surveillance cameras in the forest.

“We can record pictures of the pygmies at night. After it’s proven they exist, we will immediately inform the Forestry Ministry, or even the President,” he said.

Sukatmoko promised his office would protect the pygmies and not disturb them.

“We believe they really exist in TNWK. We’re making strenuous efforts to find them. In the event that we do, we hope the government protects them. Our rangers have seen them with their own eyes, but have yet to take pictures of them,” he said, adding the center had allowed academics and researchers to trace and study the group.

Indonesian Forum for the Environment (Walhi) Lampung chapter campaign director Mukri Friatna said the pygmies had been sighted in a number of forests in Indonesia, such as in Kerinci Seblat (West Sumatra), Liang Bua (Flores) and Bone (South Sulawesi).

“In Kerinci Seblat, they are known as the orang pendek [short people], in Flores as homo floresiensis, and in Bone as members of the Oni tribe. In Mount Kerinci, the creature is depicted as having inverted legs but is very agile among the dense foliage,” said Mukri.

TNWK, located in East Lampung, covers 125,000 hectares. The forest, more than 40 percent of which has been damaged, is home to the Sumatran elephant, rhinoceros, tigers and a number of other rare wildlife species.

Toksook Bay man and son see Bigfoot near Qalvinraaq River

This drawing depicts a large, tall Bigfoot-like creature sighted on the tundra between the villages of Chefornak and Toksook Bay as described by the eyewitnesses.

A man and his 10 year old son who were checking their blackfish (can’giiq) trap on the frozen tundra are the most recent eyewitnesses in sighting a Bigfoot-like creature.

The sighting took place in mid-January 2013. The man and his son were traveling from their home, Toksook Bay, to check their blackfish trap near the two mountains called Ingriaraak. The Ingriaraak Mountains are located between the villages of Chefornak and Nightmute beyond the Kolavinarak (Qalvinraaq) River.

The man said that the weather that day was beautiful and balmy. He decided it would be a good day to take his son out to check the trap for blackfish. They snowmachined to where the trap was set and checked the trap.

However, when they were done and ready to go back home to Toksook Bay, the snowmachine’s puller came off and could not start. They were stranded so the two climbed one of the Ingriaraak and got a cell phone signal. The man called home and asked for someone to come and get them.

After calling, the man and his son walked down back to the snowmachine to wait. It started to rain and the boy was getting cold. The boy wanted to start walking and since there had been no reports of upcoming bad weather for that day and the trail markers were visible, the two decided to start walking back towards Nightmute.

The man wanted to bring home his catch so he unhooked his sled from behind the snowmachine and pulled it behind him while walking. His son rode in the sled for a while and then got out to walk beside his father. They were still quite a ways from reaching the Qalvinraaq River.

They had been walking for about an hour when the man happened to look behind them. About 200 yards away there, behind them, was a very tall, large, dark, strong-looking, muscular person-like creature standing, watching them. The man’s heart quailed but he did not show it to his son. His son, in the meantime, also saw the creature and waved to it, thinking it was a member of the search and rescue team coming to get them.

At this point, the thought that it may be Bigfoot did not cross the man’s mind. Fear flooded his mind, thinking it was an alangruq, or ghost. The man remembered his mother’s words to not look back no matter how powerful the urge was to turn and look. He maintained his control and calmly told his son not to wave at the creature or to look at it.

So on they continued walking towards Nightmute, following the trail markers because the man knew that any search and rescue party would be coming for them following that same well-marked trail.

Only when he saw the lights of the oncoming snowmachines did he dare look back. And when he did, he did not see anything except the frozen tundra. He told the rescuers about what they had seen and experienced and asked if they could all go back to see if there were any footprints made by the creature. But no, the rescuers did not want to. It was getting dark and they were anxious to get back to the village.

During the time when they were walking, the man had taken out his phone to record what was behind him, pointing the phone over his shoulder without looking behind him. When they were safely in the village at Nightmute and eating at the home of a friend, the man told them what they had seen. He remembered his recording and took out his cell phone to view the footage, but alas, it had been somehow accidentally erased or deleted, or there was the possibility that he might not have hit the recording button at all.

His sharp-eyed son also described the creature as a yugpak, a very large person. He said the shoulders were very broad and powerful. The arms were long and strong-looking, like a wrestler’s arms. They reached down to its knees. There were also some light colored markings or textures on the creature’s chest and stomach where the muscles stood out.

Back home in Toksook, the man told his wife and it made her feel scared. He told his wife’s parents, his parents, his grandparents, and his friends what they had seen. The next day he read about the Bigfoot sighting that occurred in the spring of 2012 in Kasigluk in the latest issue of the Delta Discovery, the January 16th, 2013 edition. It was the first published eyewitness account of a sighting in the newspaper.

The following day the man wanted to go back to that same area to look for footprints but the weather turned and a blizzard blew in so he stayed home.

Scott Mardis posted this on my Facebook wall yesterday and it comes from the owner of Nora's Loch Ness page. Comparing the photos I can see what the points are about the head: the top photo seems to show a much larger kind of head with the ears set higer up and a more elongated snout.

Compared to both the South American giant otter and the North American river otter, the Champlain creatture does seem to have a head of about the same dimensions as the South American otter, meaning it has a head of very large actual or absolute size. But the head is not shaped the same. The ears are indeed mare prominent and higer on the head, the eye are further back from the end of the snoutand the snout is more elongated in the top photo.The eye is also further back and the snout more elongated relatively in comparison to the normal North American river otter. My impression is still that this is a giant otter at least the same size as the South American giant otter, but with a head of a much different shape: the Master-Otter of Ireland more than likely. And although it also seems to be seen in Loch Ness, its neck falls far short of the longer-necked creature reports from both Loch Ness and Lake Champlain (see giant otter photo below). But it is a much smaller and more agile creature than the Plesiosauriian type of Water-monsters and therefore likely to be more common and more commonly reported. We do seem to be seeing more photos of this type more often in recent years, in Britain and in Europe, in Russia and Northern China, in Alaska and in Canada. One of the things that determine this category are the swimming posture in the water, which is often the same as this Lake Champlain photo at the top.

This is a smattering of additional reports out of the Appalachians. There are few enough such reports, but we are slowly building up a very interesting picture. Our working hypothesis is that we are dealing with the Giant Sloth.

There are noteworthy observations and variations across the universe of sightings that lead to a couple of conjectures.

1 The male and female are quite different. The male is robust, wears two pointed horns. Depending on season its fur is thick and wool like. A snout and non bear like configuration of the skull. The female is surprisingly thin and the skull is not nearly as robust. [I am presuming the "Horns" reported are actually its ears-DD]

2 The long claws are used as digging tools and disturbed soil is common.

3 The fur is wool like and is seen in its various states which leads to confusion. It may well account for the robust appearance.

Again, I think that the total extant eyeball reports are less than two dozen. That is enough to puts folks on notice and to encourage more reports coming forward.

From Monsters and Mysteries in America: The dark hallows and dense forests of Appalachia harbor strange mysteries. Local residents will recount their encounters with the terrifying Sheepsquatch. The border between southwest Virginia and West Virginia is an area shrouded in mystery and folklore, but few mysteries are more unusual and intriguing than that of the Appalachian white beast known to the locals as Sheepsquatch. Dakota Cheeks and his best friend Ricky Joyce become prey to the legendary white beast during a weekend hunting trip.

In July 2011 I received an unusual email that, quite frankly, I thought was a prank...that's until I started to check into the claim. From what I can gather there is a bit of local folklore with this story. Last Summer I was contacted by the producers of Monsters and Mysteries in America for information on this beast and others I had written about. Here is the previous post:

Mr. Strickler - I hope you can give me an idea of what I saw a few weeks ago while hiking with a friend in Fairy Stone State Park in Virginia. We had been on one of the trails for about an hour when we stopped for a brief rest and drink. This was my first visit to this park and I was pleased that the area we were in was secluded.

After a few minutes of rest we continued to walk along the trail when my friend suddenly stopped and pointed towards the right at large group of rocks. Something was moving around but it was about 50 yards away so we didn't get a very good look. We could see that it was light in color and was quite bulky. We stood frozen wanting to know what this creature was though I was getting more frightened by the second. As we started to walk the creature moved onto a rock where we got a good look at it. It looked like a medium sized bear but the fur was very light in color, almost a yellowish gray. The head was very strange also. There was a snout like that of a bear but the dark round eyes were set lower on the head. It was looking in our direction and we had no intention on sticking around to see what it was going to do.

We got back to the car and immediately left for home. I have read online that this area has a strange history, thus the name 'Fairy Stone'. The creature is unlike any I have seen or heard about before. I had made an inquiry to a local historian who laughed at me and said I saw a 'Sheep Squatch'. What is that? Thanks for you help - Teena

Monstropedia has a brief history about a cryptid referred to as a 'Sheepsquach', which is also known as the 'white thing'. It is supposedly a white woolly-haired cryptid that has been reported throughout the southwestern region of Virginia. Fairy Stone StatePark is located in the southwestern region of Virginia.

This creature is described as "being the size of a bear, with completely white wool-like fur. Its front limbs end in paw-like hands, similar to a raccoon’s but larger. The beast head is long and pointed, like a dog with long saber-like teeth and a single-pint horns like a young goat. SheepSquatch sports a long and hairless tail, similar to an opossum’s and is reputed to smell like sulfur."

There have been a few reported sightings over the years. The counties with the most sightings of Sheepsquatch are from Boone, Kanawha, Putnam, and Mason. A large surge in sightings took place in Boone County during the mid-1990s.

In 1994, a former Navy seaman witnessed the beast break through the forest. The white thing drank for a few minutes, then crossed the creek and continued on across toward the road. The navy seaman observed the animal for a while, and then it moved on into the surrounding brush.

Also in that same year, two children observed the beast while playing in the yard in Boone County. They saw what looked like a large white bear, and it stood up on its hind legs, which made it over six feet tall. Startled, the beast ran away through the forest, breaking medium-sized limbs off of trees as it went.

Another encounter a year later involved a car. A couple driving through Boone County noticed a large white beast sitting in the ditch along the road. They stopped their car to get a good look at it. It was described again as a large white animal with woolly fur about the size of a bear. In this instance, it was described as having “four eyes”. Then, it jumped out of the ditch and starts attacking the car. The couple drove off quickly, and when they got home noticed the large scratches on the side where the beast attacked.

Another incident occurred in 1999, this time a couple of campers were in the forest of Boone County at night around a campfire. They heard an animal snorting and scuffling around the camp, but it did not come into the light of the campfire. All of the sudden, the SheepSquatch appeared out of the darkness and charged at the campers. They jumped up and ran back to their house; all the while being pursued by the SheepSquatch. It stopped at the edge of the forest, however, and let out a terrible scream. Then it just turned around and headed back into the woods. The next morning, the campers examined their campsite and the trail home. It was torn up, they said, “like someone had tilled it up for gardening”.

Tuesday, 26 March 2013

Note that the crocodylian in this story is said to resemble an alligator rather than a crocodile. We have heard that description before with the Medcroc reports.

Costa Croc: seven-foot alligator 'on the loose in Spain'

Police on the Costa del Sol are searching for an unusual fugitive: a
seven-foot reptile - believed to be an alligator - that has been spotted in
waterways near the popular tourist resort of Mijas.

Experts have predicted, using
the tracks left by the alligator, that it is aged between 12 and 18 years and
could weigh up to 11 stonePhoto: KeystoneUSA-ZUMA/Rex
Features

By Fiona Govan,
Madrid

8:08PM GMT 20 Mar 2013

The beast, dubbed locally as the Costa Croc, was first sighted last month
near a golf course east of Marbella.

This week officers from Seprona, a special nature protection unit from the
Civil Guard, confirmed the presence of the large reptile after finding its
footprints in undergrowth beside the Majada Vieja, an area of manmade lakes,
just inland from the coast.

Authorities have posted red danger signs across the zone, a popular walking
spot bordering a private golf course, warning: “Grave danger. Crocodile on the
loose.”
Special police motorcycle units are patrolling the area in the hope of locating
the animal, which estimated to measure between six and seven feet from nose to
tail, as it basks in the sun.

Local expert Enrique Prieto, manager of the Crocodile Park in nearby
Torremolinos was called in to help identify the exotic fugitive.
He said the tracks had been most likely made by an alligator aged between 12
and 18 years and weighing around 70 kilos. It had probably been released into
the wild by an exotic pet collector after growing too big and becoming
unmanageable.
”It is unlikely to pose a danger to humans unless they stumbled across it in
the undergrowth,” Mr Prieto said, because at this time of year “its metabolism
slows in the cold and it has no need to feed”.
But he warned that as the weather got warmer it would start looking for food.
“If it hasn't been caught by May or June then human activities in and around the
water should be banned.”
Despite the warning signs, visitors have reportedly flocked to the lakelands,
a stone's throw from a residential development where many British expats own
homes, in the hope of spotting the giant reptile.
Mario Calvente, a local gardener was the first to report seeing a large
reptile after he spotted it dozing in the sun in a clearing beside the lake,
last month.
”I know what I saw, and it wasn't an iguana,” he told a local newspaper,
describing how the sound of his moped disturbed the reptile which slid off into
the water as he approached.
”It was two metres long with a big snout and small eyes on top of its head. I
didn't want to hang around.”

This has been posted at the Frontiers of Anthropology since September of 2011. I had always intended to add it as a separate article here but I didn't get around to it until now.

This representation shows the "Cleft Mountain at the End of the World" or KHUT which was interpreted in the Platonic dialogues version as the "Pillars of Hercules" or Straits of Gibralter. It would seem that in Ancient Egyptian days there was a population of Marozi (Spotted Lions) in the Atlas Mountains region of North Africa.

Monday, 25 March 2013

Giant Squid Are a Single Species

Arciteuthis from disparate locations around the world are genetically similar.

By Kate Yandell | March 20, 2013

The deep sea-dwelling giant squid Arciteuthis has turned up all over the world. But, whether in Florida or Japan, the invertebrates are all members of the same species, according to a paper published today (March 20) in Proceedings of the Royal Society B. Analyses of 43 squid from diverse locations showed that their mitochondrial DNA varies surprisingly little.

This lack of genetic diversity is puzzling. While giant squid are elusive, the researchers wrote, their populations are believed to be relatively large and geographically spread out—qualities usually associated with high diversity. The first live giant squid was spotted in 2004, and the Discovery Channel published the first video of the species earlier this year. But partially digested fragments of the cephalopods are found frequently in the stomachs of a key predator, the sperm whale, and scientists believe that they wouldn’t be able to support such common predation if their global population were small.

“It is difficult to reconcile this low genetic diversity with the reasonable assumption that Architeuthis are globally distributed with relatively large population size,” the researchers wrote in the paper.

The team collected 43 squid from diverse locations, including New Zealand, South Africa, and the Falkland Islands. They were found floating dead in the water, washed up on beaches, or as accidental by-catch from deep-sea fishermen.

The researchers said that there were many possible explanations for their findings. The squid’s mitochondria may have evolved unusually slowly, or they could have recently expanded from a small population to a large, widely distributed one. But the explanation they considered most likely was that the squid were unusually well traveled.

This could mean that the squid, which can grow as big as 18 meters in length, migrate through the oceans as adults. But past studies had shown that they are generally restricted to small hunting ranges. Instead, the researchers said, the squid may float long distances on sea currents in a juvenile, larva-like form, keeping geographically separate squid populations from forming.

Researchers
have discovered a new species of
Vietnamese salamander that looks like it was birthed from an abyssal volcano.
Found tucked away in Tokyo's National Museum of Nature and Science, the
scientists described the species in the new edition of Current
Herpetology. Coal-black with orange-tinted toes, the new crocodile newt (in
the genus Tylototriton) was determined to be a new species when it showed
morphological and genetic differences from near relatives. Despite its
remarkable appearance, the researchers say these are typical colors for
crocodile newts.

"I was asked by a curator to identify [the new species]
and temporarily identified it as Tylototriton vietnamensis (the Vietnamese
crocodile newt). However, the morphology was different from the original
description of the Vietnamese crocodile newt," Kanto Nishikawa with Kyoto
University told mongabay.com. "Because I have never seen the Vietnamese
crocodile newt I could not confirm the specimens in Tokyo are undescribed
species. In 2012, I had a chance to visit Vietnam and discussed [the specimen]
with co-author, Tao Thien Nguyen, and made a conclusion on its taxonomic status,
as new species."

The scientists named the new species Ziegler's
crocodile newt (Tylototriton ziegleri) after Thomas Ziegler of Cologne
Zoo who works with reptiles and amphibians in Vietnam. The new species is small,
with males measuring 5.4 to 6.8 (2 to 2.6 inches) centimeters and females
measuring 7.1 centimeters (2.7 inches). While genetic testing proved that it was
a new species, the morphological differences were key.

Ziegler's
crocodile newt is currently only known from only a small habitat of montane
forest and wetlands.

"Currently, habitat loss and degradation,
especially around the breeding ponds, is a major threat to the populations of
the new species," the researchers write in the paper. "Legal protection of their
habitats and regulation of excessive commercial collection are important
measures for conservation of this species."

Crocodile newts are popular
in the illegal pet trade and are often over-collected from the wild. There are
now ten known species, eight of which have been evaluated by the IUCN Red List.
Of these eight, three are threatened with extinction, four are listed as Near
Threatened, and only one is Least Concern.

In the salamander family,
newts have rougher skin than other salamanders as adults. Most of the world's
salamanders are in the newt family, also known as efts.

I saw this on YouTube and I thought I'd share it. I think one of the witnesses in there saw a large male ape or NAPES. Interesting. And then there are probably reports of more than one other thing being called Bigfoot.

Paranormal America-Bigfoot!

Published on Mar 12, 2013

Sasquatch. The Wild Man. Bigfoot. Believers in the massive creature claim he's half man, half primate and roams the Pacific Northwest. Join a team of experts as they use advanced scientific analysis to investigate the phenomenon to reveal what's science, and what's science fiction. Follow along as we break down one of the most controversial pieces of evidence... a 40-year-old film that many believe is actual video of the apelike being.

Sunday, 24 March 2013

Melba Ketchum posted a mesage recently which presumably acted as "nsolicited support" for her hypothesis that Bigfoot DNA consists of human maternal ancestors and an unknown primate progenitor along the male line. The notice begins with this citation:

The following was a unsolicited commentary by A. John Marsh on a genealogy DNA page which scientists use to discuss mtDNA origin. This is not the complete discussion . However, it sums up the analysis.

Agriculture resulted in extensive population growths and human activities. Howev...er, whether major human expansions started after Neolithic Time still remained controversial. With the benefit of 1000 Genome Project, we were able to analyze a total of 910 samples from 11 populations in Africa, Europe…

And the gist of the support discussed the stated findings that the mtDNA analyzed form Bigfoot samples were of this T group, were related to one another, and originated in a subsection of T haplogroup carriers that originated about 13000 years ago.

My reply included the following information:

"This looks good on the surface but all it says really is that the human element of the DNA samples studied are all related and are out of one set of human ancestors centered on Western Europe and the British Isles and in fact is probably indicating one or more populations coming out of ther British Isles (which would be the case if you were sampling White Americans)The T group is prominently associated with Megalithic Europe and is common in Ireland: it is thought to have some relation to the redheaded strain of Western Europeans. It is also the maternal line of the current Royal Family of England (the Queen of England carries this type of mtDNA) and there are all sorts of different mutated strains in the set which are unlike the rest of the mtDNA T haplogroup: Hemophilia is a mutant genetic defect arising out of the same royal family and all hemophiliacs in the world today got it from Queen Victoria's family. NONE of this is good news for Bigfoot relationships because ALL of this information is well known to be WITHIN the human species. Group T is stated in the book Seven Daughters of Eve to have originated 13000 BC. No new news. That book was written by B. Sykes

We are defining the relatedness among DIFFERENT RELATED HUMAN DNAs. Nothing more.

We are talking DNAs COMMON IN THE BRITISH ISLES especially, Which WOULD be represented among WHITE AMERICANS."

Saturday, 23 March 2013

This just posted on my Facebook wall by Scott Mardis:
"Could the object in the 2009 Olsen Champ video, commonly interpreted as a head and neck, in fact be a tail with a tail fin?"

Personally I still think it is a swimming moose with the head changing apparent shape because the resolution is poor and the animal is turning its head from side to side. But Scoott has a right to be heard also and it might be he could have a point.

Incidentally this is now the 600th posting on this blog. My other blogs have about 300 postings each.

Friday, 22 March 2013

These two frames represent the two Surgeon's Photos of the set which came out of the developer, there were supposed to have been other photos which did not come through. I was recently asked how I could account for the object in the second photo being a reconfiguration of the object in the first one (Which would mean that it is impossible for a model built up on a toy submarine to assume both configurations as I contend) I did have this sketch added into my Cryptozoology group on Yahoo as of 2006 and taken from the copy of the photo in costello's book: it os only a suggestion but it dors seem that the darker spots at the surface could actually relate to one body showing partly through the murky water with part of the body and trailing tail the same in both photos, but the neck taken down in front in. the second shot. Below that is a copy of the full uncropped original shot.

The creature looks awfully small but upon comparison I make that out as the absolute visual size of a human being standing a short distance away, such as across the street or down the street a hundred yards or more. My guess is therefore that it should be the size of a normal human being. There is also a marked reduction of wave sizes that can be directly measured between the waves at shore and the waves at the location of the object itself.
My findings on this score only reinforce my conclusions that Christian Spuring had not a single clue as to what he was supposed to have been talking about. And that this is something much larger and more substantial than any bird, especially the submerged part of it.

Popular culture

Grindylows appear in the Harry Potter books and films where they live in the lake near Hogwarts. They appear as small, light green humanoid creatures with eight octopus like tentacles below the waist, large heads and big yellow eyes.[5]
An unfriendly race called grindylows appears in The Scar, a novel by China Miéville. They are described as humanoid with grey-green mottled skin, large dark eyes, foot-long teeth and a single eel-like tail below the waist.
Evil aquatic monsters called grindylows appear in the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game.[6]

[On this page aree several depictions of Grindylows from the internet. They match generally with the Central European Water Sprites and the whole category is much the same as the European counterpart to the Kappas. They are also sometimes called Water Brownies in Northern England. There are some recent reports of the frog-flipper like footprints from the central part of Europe so presumably they are not quite extinct yet. They would seem to be representatives of Tyler Stone's category of Freshwater Macaque Monkeys. The reputation for dragging people, especially small children, down into the water is worldwide, but presumably this is a warning to the children to behave themselves, as the Wikipedia suggests.-DD]

The bodies of Freshwater Monkeys are hair-covered but the hair can look as slick as that of a seal. The frog=like flipper feet are shown in tracks, and this representation accurately shows that the big toe is very much reduced: this is also shown on tracks that are thought to be authentic.

Wednesday, 20 March 2013

Photo c/o Bruce Costello. A Facebook Friend of mine posted this photo of a supposed Bigfoot and I thought it looked very much like a mother orangutan with a long snout and long messy fur, with a clinging infant that also looks very much like an orangutan. I would guess this belongs along with the Myakka ape to a native species of ape capable of living in warm-temperate forests and eating primarily fruit like apples and pears from orchards, acorns and pine nuts, and probably a large amount of insect and small animal matter including bird nestlings and organic refuse (human garbage) Other disagree with me and they have said so publically. I am still putting up this photo in the belief that I do have the proper interpretation of it. Whatever it is, it seems to be of a quite large size. The left hand seems to be in front at the far right of the picture and showing four regular fingers.

"Oh definitely," she said. "I don't think people should go around shooting him if they find him."

Where the encounter took place

Her sasquatch keepsake comes from her parents. Klopp said her parents were driving along in the 1960s, towing a small trailer, when they swerved off the road to avoid hitting what they believed was a man.

Klopp said her parents stopped at the Porter Creek Store to assess what had happened. They got out of the car and searched the area, but they found nothing.

The next day, her parents discovered pieces of skin and hair snagged on the trailer.

"This is something you don't run into every day, quite literally," Klopp said.

She said the material was sent to the University of Montana for testing about 3 years ago. The results showed the DNA was too deteriorated and the hair too degraded to make any identification.

Klopp still believes. She decided to share her story after hearing reports that someone in Texas had killed a bigfoot.

"There are reports that someone has one and has shot it and is storing it in his freezer," Klopp said. "I would like to know for sure."

[The samples are of course head hairs, from something that has longer hairs on the head, and hence human-like. The problem with the DNA being too degraded to tell anything is actually common in supposed Bigfoot DNA samples, which is one reason to be cautious with any reported findings: most samples are not collected properly nor yet stored safely in airtight containers, so that contamination by the human sample handlers is also a very real possibility.]

Monday, 18 March 2013

A REVIEW OF "LOCH NESS, NESSIE AND ME" BY TONY HARMSWORTH

by Scott Mardis In the 80 years since the claims for the existence of a group of "monsters" or unknown creatures in Loch Ness came to the world’s attention, two primary versions of the story have emerged: the Tim Dinsdale/Robert Rines/Henry Bauer narrative (that there is a resident population of unknown animals resembling the presumably extinct marine reptile plesiosaurs inhabiting Loch Ness, trapped in Loch Ness since the post-glacial period after entering Loch Ness when it was briefly connected to the sea in the Moray Firth) and the Adrian Shine/Tony Harmsworth/Dick Raynor narrative (most of the evidence used to support the first hypothesis is grossly in error, but other evidence can be used to make a thin case for the existence of some kind of less exotic "monster", probably a fish). Relevant to the second interpretation, Tony Harmsworth’s book LOCH NESS, NESSIE AND ME is the best presentation in book form of that version I have ever read (I have not read Shine’s own book, LOCH NESS, but it is next on my shopping list). At the risk of facing the wrath of the author, who I greatly respect and am friendly with, I must admit that I lean toward the alternate hypothesis. I should know a little about the subject. I have spent the last 20 years investigating similar claims of creatures in Lake Champlain, Vermont, U.S.A. Nevertheless, I highly recommend any serious student of the subject to get all viewpoints and though much of Harmsworth’s book is concerned with peripheral autobiographical subject matter (much of which is of interest in it’s own right), the portions dealing with the major evidence commonly argued pro and con in the case for Loch Ness "monsters" is dealt with in much technical detail. The work of Robert Rines and his organization, the Academy of Applied Science, are heavily criticized and, to a less harsh degree, the Tim Dinsdale film. The late Rines and Dinsdale are not here to address these criticisms and alternate views on the subject are to be found in the Loch Ness books by Henry Bauer, Tim Dinsdale, Nicholas Witchell, Roy Mackal and Dennis L. Meridith. Many salient points of contention regarding the Loch Ness "monsters" are discussed by Harmsworth: the pre-1933 historical record, the validity of "classic" Nessie photographs, the claims of amphibious sightings, etc.. The prime focus of the book is the founding and history of what would eventually become the Loch Ness Centre by Harmsworth and his partner, Ronnie Bremner, in 1980 and Harmsworth’s subsequent involvement with Adrian Shine’s Loch Ness and Morar Project. Many important events in the history of Nessie are here from a first person perspective: the fraudulent activities of the infamous Frank Searle, the 1984/85 controversy over the validity of the Academy of Applied Science "flipper" photos, Operation Deepscan and the discovery of a tree stump alleged to be the object in the 1975 Academy of Applied Science "gargoyle head" photo, Project Urquhart and the 1994 "surgeon’s photo" hoax claim. There is an interesting arc in the story narrative that traces Harmsworth’s belief in a plesiosaur-like Nessie (based on such things as the Zuiyo Maru carcass, Dinsdale’s film and the Rines evidence) to a rejection of that in favor of a less exotic "monster", probably a large fish such as a large sturgeon or possibly a giant eel. (Recent additions to that category, not mentioned by Harmsworth, include the Wels Catfish and Sleeper Sharks). Though many who wish for a plesiosaur may find much in the book disheartening, Harmsworth does make much of his own 1986 sighting of something unusual in the loch and arch-skeptics, such as Steuart Campbell, are taken to task, as well as Rines and Dinsdale. Regardless of one’s views on the interpretations of the evidence made by Harmsworth, one is impressed by the author’s sincerity in his expressed intentions of wanting to get at the truth behind the stories of the Loch Ness "monster" and the story of his 30 year search is of value to any serious student of the controversial subject.

This photo of the two Bigfooters standing in front of the poster for the Boggy Creek monster display came into my facebook inbox yesterday. I was immediately struck by how much the contours of the forehead, head and face resembled the skull of a Neanderthal man and so I put this demonstration together. The skull of a Cro-Magnon man is on the left and the Neanderthal is on the right (Both skulls and the creature on the poster are males)http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Legend_of_Boggy_Creekhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fouke_Monster

I would say that the Fouke Monster together with the very similar reports from Florida and Eastern Texas are all very good representatives of a Living Neanderthal, The American Almas.

Sunday, 17 March 2013

This illustration turned up on the "30 Day Cryptozoology Art Challenge" labelled as an Ahool. The Ahool is a flat-faced giant bat that is a biped on the ground, as large as a very small child. This is on the ither hand a pretty good depiction of a Chupabat (Giant False Vampire Bat) moving stealthily on the ground as a quadruped with its wings folded up. The ears are slightly too long and the snout is a mite short, but either way is not much.

The fur (Body hair) on this species is usually described as longer and scruffy on the back, but that does not mean that it is always in that state, and the hair on the back might not be very clearly seen from this angle.
Incidentally, one of the other "Chupacabras" I saw on my photo search was actually a "Devil Monkey", being a very large but mostly mummified male rhesus monkey's body. And I have this "Chupacabras" skull that is the large iguana lizard sort, sent in to my email some weeks back:

I took this picture awhile ago and I just happened to see it on my twitter page and… I just want to post it again because I feel like my discovery has been overlooked. I took this photo last year at Lake Champlain when passing through Vermont. Son of Champ? I dont know. Do you believe?

Saturday, 16 March 2013

This turned up on my facebook page as purportedly showing a longnecked unknown animal on a Chuimu tapestry (ornamental embroidered cloth meant for a wall covering) from prehistoric Peru.

These appear to be representations of long-necked water monsters and "Dinosaurs" are still supposed to be sighted in the lower-lying jungle areas of Peru and Bolivia. These are not otters, otters do not have such elongated snouts nor such long flat ears. However, if the "Ears" are meant to show the Euryapsid skull openings again, we are once again talking Plesiosaurs and probably even "Patagonian Plesiosaurs." the legs are not very important and they could be representing flippers: I notice that the tail ends of these creatures send in a "Whirlpool" and I have seen the same conventionalization elsewhere,

Notices were also posted that this cloth is a National Treasure of Peru, that it was taken from the country illegally and is loot. I have no connection to this matter and I know nothing of the whereabouts of this cloth now. But if such is the case, I do hope the people of Peru get it back again.

Friday, 15 March 2013

Another Taino artifact is this small "Bear" representation. Since there are supposed to be no bears in the area, the next suggestion is that it could possibly represent a surviving ground sloth. The Tainos lived in Cuba and Cuba is one place the bear-sized Groundsloths are alleged to have survived. Also it does seem the paws are meant to show some sizeable hooked claws, although that part may not seem readily apparent at first.

I came upon the following tattoo design while browsing and I thought of the following comparison. The Tainos are Arawaks in the Caribbean area but they ultimately came from South America and the tattoo pattern could easily have originated in Colombia

Thursday, 14 March 2013

This is a translation from Spanish language sources. I must say that there is a lot of material from the Spanish language press that I do wish to access in my many areas of interest. In this update, Puerto Rican gargoyle from twenty years ago has reappeared which effectively suggests that there is a native population generally avoiding contact. Geographically, it is accessible to Central American comparables.

Otherwise other creatures are out there to sow confusion. These could be even other types of unidentified vampire bats. What is clear is that local reports and local populations do tend to meet the test of conforming evidence. Nocturnal predators are showing up globally who have generally maintained a low profile through sheer fear of humanity.

These are all large creatures with large areas of influence and thus a low population density. They have mostly been identified in the past through rare sightings which is why we always seem to have a prospective name.

Unfortunately, mankind has stopped significantly harvesting in the wild and the result is that these often very dangerous creatures are no longer receiving clear lessons on just how dangerous we are. There surely can be nothing more edifying that a pack of dogs sending either a black bear or a cougar up a tree and for a man to come along with a rifle or bow to finish the job.

Without the human hunting pressure, natural carnivores will want to exploit our farm animals. It is not a real crisis yet, but it will lead in time to active commercial harvesting in order to suppress the threat. Again that treat need not target the rare treat as to educate. These animals are not stupid.

The Puerto Rican media approached the subject of the paranormal predator again in 2012, when reporter Yaritza Santiago wrote an article for El Nuevo Dia about the entity’s return to the scene, this time in the island municipality of Vieques. “A strange wild animal prowls the verdant fields and communities of this island municipality. This is the only way to explain the discovery of dead horses, hens and rabbits in situations that terrified Viequenses have ascribed to a panther that allegedly escaped from an American tourist’s possession. Others say it is a jaguar; still others speak of the return of the Chupacabras, whose existence they do not question for a second.”

Thirty chickens met an untimely demise on the property of José Martínez and his wife Jeami in Barrio La Hueca. The couple had gone off to a birthday party on the previous night, returning home an hour before midnight. They went to bed and Mr. Martínez woke up at half past five in the morning to feed the family animals. In cold glow of his flashlight, José was startled to find the roosters dead in their cages, with deep puncture marks on their backs, drained of blood. The couple told reporters that they had not heard any abnormal sounds in the night.

José, 26, and Jeami, 21, described the massacre of their animals as “a battlefield” where the unknown assailant had operated at leisure. She remained convinced that the perpetrator was none other than the mysterious being that spread fear throughout Puerto Rico during her childhood. “It wasn’t a dog. I think it could be the Chupacabras.”

Reporters from El Nuevo Dia found “sort of animal print” at the location as well as poultry carcasses and metal cages scattered around the premises. Mr. Martínez filed a complaint with the municipal police, which in turn referred the case to the Civil Defense and Emergency Management Bureau. Police chief José Belardo, however, was unmoved by the carnage at the Martínez household, citing a lack of specific evidence or physical proof. He did, however, manifest to El Nuevo Día’s reporters his awareness of a “radar image” of a strange creature taken by a U.S. Marines radar, and that fear among the island’s population was quite real. Unlike Mayor “Chemo” Soto’s gallant efforts to capture the Chupacabras in the mid-90s, law enforcement on Vieques was not planning any grand gestures.

On main island of Puerto Rico, news organizations were covering the “gargoyle”that supposedly haunted the vicinity of Guánica, the city with the magnificent bay on the Caribbean Sea. This nightmarish vision had attacked not only animals, but allegedly humans as well. Its patterns of attack resembled those of the Chupacabras, but not exactly the same entity. “Some identified it with the Chupacabras, but others believe it was a different creature, a sly and sinister one, using the ruins and tunnels of the [abandoned] Central Guánica sugar mill as its lair,” wrote Pedro Bosque in an article for El Nuevo Dia. It was in this warren of half-flooded, weed-choked tunnels that the skeletons of its victims were reportedly found.

Despite its predilection for lovely Guánica, the “gargoyle” had reportedly been seen in Lajas and San Germán, communities in southwestern Puerto Rico that acquired notoriety in the late ‘80s and throughout the 1990s as paranormal hotspots. And unlike those relatively distant years, eyewitnesses were reluctant to share their names with the media, particularly when it came to the attacks on humans.

These incidents were discussed in hushed tones. One witness interviewed by the press claimed seeing injuries on a man’s belly, produced by an“animal with large wings” whose claws had torn at his flesh “to the extent that his fat could be seen.” The unnamed witness spoke soberly of seeing the victim – nicknamed -lift his t-shirt to display the wounds received in his own backyard.

Police officer Miguel Negrón, on the other hand, admitted to hearing “a loud sound of flapping wings” while patrolling the abandoned sugar mill. Was an unknown avian taking off from the rusted cranes of the old mill? According to the officer, the “gargoyle” had been described by some as a very large bird reeking of sulfur or rot (hydrogen sulfide?), feeding on live animals such as dogs, cats and horses by exsanguination.

[ this is a renewal of earlier clearly observed gargoyles around twenty years ago from this island. ]

Four Thousand Miles Away

While the Chupacabras staged a return to Puerto Rico, its sinister kin were making news in Chile, where the national media latched on to a story that was as sensation as it was bizarre: while attacking a henhouse in Paine, on the outskirts of the city of Santiago, the predator had allegedly suffered what was described as a “miscarriage”.

Cristián Solís was sleeping peacefully when the frantic clucking of his hens woke him up at four o’clock in the morning. He ran outside to find fifty dead hens, arranged in circles, presenting no visible injuries, but without a drop of blood in their carcasses. Shocked and dismayed though he was, Solís was bowled over by what he found next.

He described the find as “embryos of something I had never seen before”. Describing them as miniature dinosaurs measuring some 30 centimeters long, they had hairy backs, thick, hard tails with sharp tips, arms shorter than their bodies, suggesting bipedal motion.“They were rather horrible,” he was quoted as saying. “I think the dead hens were attacked by the mother of these embryos, who must’ve had a miscarriage due to the strain of the attack.”

The specimens were turned over to SAG (the notorious Agriculture and Wildlife Service that hindered research into the Chilean mutilations wave of the year 2000). The ministry reported that it had been unable to determine the species to which the specimens belonged as they were“too dehydrated to be properly analyzed.”

Chupacabras activity had gone into abeyance for a number of years in these latitudes, with the most recent cases dating to 2007, when reports of attacks in world-famous Viña del Mar appeared in the press.

During the month of May of that year, the Ugalde family had its own close encounter with the unknown at four a.m., when a loud noise woke up the entire household – the sound of something very large and heavy suddenly landing on the roof, dragging its wings. The chickens behind the family property erupted in chaotic noises, extinguished one by one.

According to an article in the La Estrella newspaper, Mrs. Ugalde ran out into the darkness to save her poultry farm and face the unknown intruder. "I went to the backyard and I saw it. It was like a large bird, standing about a meter, with the bearing of a dwarf. It has feathers, wings and left footprints like those of a goat.It was looking for food, and I think it must've been hungry," she explained. The entity had already broken the henhouse door and helped itself to the farm animals. Upon being surprised by the woman, it flew off toward the hills.

Seven hens were lost that evening, and the family did not hesitate to place a call to the Carabineros (the Chilean state police) to report the attack. "They told us it was that (the Chupacabras) and that they had never seen anything like it. They were overwhelmed as well," Mrs. Ugalde added.

When the strange animal passed over the roof and reached the backyard, it broke the henhouse door and extracted the birds one by one, for a total of seven. When he was surprised by the homeowner, the Chupacabras took off, flying toward the hills.

Argentina, Chile’s neighbor on the opposite side of the towering Andes Cordillera, was not free from these strange attacks and sightings. In March 2007, El Ciudadano (www.elciudadano.net) reported on seven mutilated and exsanguinated bulls in Santiago del Estero, decrying the fact that farmers and ranchers had automatically leaped to ascribing responsibility for the killings to the Chupacabras. It is true, however, that there are significant differences between Chupacabras attacks and the “traditional” cattle mutilations, characterized by their fine incisions and the removal of certain internal organs, as was the case in the Santiago del Estero incidents.

A Mystery in Spain

On 23 February 2013 – as this article was being written – news arrived from Spain regarding a bizarre goat mutilation in the northwestern region of Galicia, specifically in the town of Fene. The story, which appeared in La Voz del Ferrol, described the mutilation and exsanguination of the goat as the work of “parties unknown”. The animals owners, understandably irate, ascribed responsibility to a“satanic cult”, stressing that “a number of people must have been needed to carry away all of the goat’s blood.”

No mention of involvement by the Chupacabras, of course, but a reminder of the long and silent history of encounters with the paranormal predator that have occurred in Spain since the ‘80s, resulting in the deaths of thousands of animals. Traditionalists blame wolves, especially in the Pyrenaic region between France and Spain, but reports and investigations carried out by the judicial system invariably mention the presence of aberrant entities, sometimes described as mandrills, baboons, or giant canids.

We must defer to the extensive work carried out by Ramón Nava Osorio and members of his Instituto de Investigaciones y Estudios Exobiológicos (IIEE) whose Chilean branch – spearheaded by Raúl Núñez – has become known to readers of INEXPLICATA over the years.

In March 1996, writes Nava Osorio, a shepherd in northern Spain by the name of Guillermo Miral Cordesa had an unexpected encounter with a strange animal as he led his flock from one mountain slope to another. “That day,” explained Miral, “I had left the flock on high and was headed downhill with two magnificent dogs. I descended quietly and normally and suddenly found myself confronted by an animal I had never seen before, and whose description I’d never heard from other shepherds. It was neither a wolf nor a dog. It looked like a huge dog, an unknown mixture, but it’s an unknown creature in the end. Neither a mastiff nor a wolf….I cannot describe its eyes, but I did focus on the enormous width of its muzzle (describing it as flat and nearly square), and for that reason I can tell you it wasn’t a wolf. It was an unknown animal with large flat ears; its fur was grey and spotted, with abundant short hair. A short tail, large paws and looking like a dog, yet not a dog. It didn’t run. It took two impressive leaps and vanished.”

While clearly a predator, the entity did not growl or bear its teeth. Miral’s own dogs followed the intruder, only turn back after traversing a brief ten meters’ distance.

In his study on the Iberian mutilations phenomenon, Chupacabras: Un Verdadero Expediente X, Miguel Aracil explores the strange simiots which have been a constant feature of Catalan legend since medieval times. The simiots are described as "strange, hairy creatures having semi-human features" and a group of woodsmen were attacked by one such entity a few decades ago: the hairy monster engaged in an orgy of destruction, smashing vehicles and forestry equipment, even hurling logs at the terrified tree-cutters (similar behavior has been reported in cases occurring in suburban Maryland during the 1970's). Although Spain's Guardia Civil looked into the matter, they conveniently "cannot remember", as Aracil notes rather dryly in his treatise. A number of armed posses were formed to explore the environs of Peña Montañesa (Huesca) where the events occurred, but "nothing was ever found, perhaps due to the large number of immense caves in the area, and the rough terrain." Medieval statues of the simiots depict them as devouring children or being trodden down by the Holy Mother: while he does not offer specifics, the author mentions that these supernatural entities were allegedly responsible for slaying entire herds of animals and on certain occasions were even responsible for some attacks on humans. Could the simiots have cousins across the ocean?

Navia Osorio contributes a “high strangeness” detail to the situation that raises the stakes: the possibility that the anomalous entity (or IEA, the Spanish acronym for “Spontaneous Aggressive Intruder”) had been brought along by a human or humanoid presence, unleashed at selected locations. Also in October 1996, José Miguel Trallero, a member of the IIEE, appeared on a local television program in the town of Barbastro to discuss the mutilation crisis. In the wake of the broadcast, a local woman approached him to tell him about a sighting near Barbastro’s shrine of Pueyo: she had seen two figures, described as “atypical”, with a very strange dog between them. The two figures had “greyish skin” and their arms were longer than usual.

Conclusion

If reality resembled the world of fiction more closely, monsters would be put down with the finality of Lieutenant Ripley purging the hideous alien xenomorph out of an airlock, consigning it to vacuum of space. The sense of finality and justice delivered by a wooden stake through the undead heart of a cinematic vampire imparts catharsis, but we find none of that with the monsters and visions that persistently manifest themselves in our reality. After eighteen months of depredations in West Virginia in 1966-67, the Mothman disappeared into legend and the uneasy dreams of those whose encounters changed the course of their lives. Hunters and scientists emerge from forays after the elusive Bigfoot with little to show for their efforts, save the tell-tale strands of hair and plaster casts that have become a trademark of their avocation.

The same can be said for the Chupacabras. The protean creature manifested for the first time in Puerto Rico in the mid-90s, followed by a rash of sightings throughout Latin America, each time described a little differently than before. Media burnout and the trivialization of the subject by popular culture – the cascade of t-shirts and bumper stickers, rap and ranchero songs, cheap plastic memorabilia sold in marketplaces – resulted in a loss of interest in the creature’s exploits in Brazil and Chile later that decade.

But the Chupacabras keeps coming back like a prize fighter, unmindful of the fatuous pronouncements of skeptics, efforts at fitting it into the UFO totem-pole by researchers bent on seducing the media once more, their prize a conference invitation or the lure of a television show. The demon is triumphant.

["Simiot" means "Monkey-like" and at one time seems to have been a different concept of the same Wildmen common elsewhere including the Basque Basajaun. However, the quadruped that slays whole herds of livestock is much more like the "Phantom Puma" category and suspicion falls on illegally introdued foreign big cats, initially as pets but eventually released into the wild.

And yes, we know from the onset that we are dealing with more than one species of vampire bats: the known fossil vampire bats are only a few inches long with wingspans of only a foot or two in life.]

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